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It can feel a bit lonely to talk to Amazon’s Echo, especially if its virtual helper, Alexa, doesn’t know what you want it to do. You can yell at it all you want, but unless there’s some logic attached to what you’re saying (and your particular smart home platform of choice is compatible with the Echo), your various smart home devices aren’t going to do anything. Bummer.
If you’re a big SmartThings user, however, the company officially announced today(Opens in a new window) that a few products that work with its smart home setup are now Echo-friendly. In other words, you’ll be able to do things like flip your lights on and off just by chatting with Amazon’s device.
Supported products include any SmartThings-compatible lights, switches, or anything that you’ve plugged into the official SmartThings power strip. And you can actually be a bit creative with what you tell your Amazon Echo to do (once everything is set up). In the demonstration video, a speaker specifically asks Alexa to flip on his “living room light”not just “Light A,” or any less-specific descriptor like that. Alexa can even dim a specific light to a particular brightness.
SmartThings now joins a growing list of smart home-themed devices that Amazon’s Echo can control, which also includes Philips Hue lightbulbs and any products that are compatible with Quirky’s Wink platform. According to SmartThings, the new Echo functionality should work if you have its older SmartThings hub or if you plan to purchase its new, to-be-released SmartThings hub (which you can already preorder now).
Pairing your Amazon Echo to your SmartThings setup is a fairly uncomplicated process(Opens in a new window). You’ll use the Echo’s Device Links optionfound in the Amazon Echo app, which is now just called Amazon Alexa(Opens in a new window)to connect your SmartThings account to the Amazon Echo. From there, you just select the various SmartThings devices you own that you want your Echo to be able to control, and authorize the pairing.
You’ll have to then go back into your Echo’s Settings app and have the Alexa discover all the new devices you just authorized. Once complete, you’ll be ready to yell at the Echo all you want.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/news/smartthings-now-works-with-amazons-echo-and-alexa